Classic. How to discourage the public from coming to a meeting:
1. Give late notice
2. Make sure the materials are not available until late.
3. Hold the meeting during the day when people are working.
4. Hold it in a meeting that is largely inaccessible to the public.
5. Put it in a room that is too small if people actually show up.
This one, has it all. Wednesday afternoon alders were informed of the following:
From: May, Michael
Sent: Wednesday, April 15, 2009 2:50 PM
To: ALL ALDERS
Cc: MY GROUP; Kurth, Mike; Hanson, Mark; O’Brien, Larry
Subject: Brown Bag on Monday, April 20, on Low Income Housing Tax Exemption IssueAlders:
You are invited to a brown bag luncheon in the Mayor’s Conference Room on Monday, April 20, from noon to 1:30 pm. The Assessor and City Attorney are finishing reports on the low income housing issue, pursuant to the direction of the Common Council at the last meeting. Those will soon be available in Legistar and in your packets for the Council meeting next week.
We wanted to make ourselves available to answer any questions you may have on the reports, or otherwise on the low income housing tax exemption claims.
I believe Lisa Veldran and the Mayor’s Office will coordinate any details, including properly noticing the meeting.
Michael P. May
Hmmm . . . up, its got it all.
1. About 3 working days notice of the meeting and the new Alders were not invited.
2. Materials are late/not yet available (its Friday morning, meeting is Monday at noon)
3. Meeting is noon – 1:30 so anyone who has an hour for lunch won’t be able to attend the whole meeting.
4. It’s in a meeting room that you have to ring a bell, get buzzed in and get escorted to the room.
5. The room is jam packed with 15 people in the room. If the assessor, city attorneys and press show up – there will hardly be room for alders let alone any public.
I suspect, they don’t really want people to show up.
